Smiling
by momoface
Summary: For Father's Day. Rex is the only person who can make Six smile.


Six couldn't help it. Even as the stoic, professional, green-clad man that he was, he just couldn't. The kid unknowingly knew exactly how to break the walls he'd tried so hard to build around himself, knew just how to make the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile.

Smiling was an expression Agent Six was just not used to wearing. The upward turn of his mouth didn't feel right on his unemotional face. But, somehow, Rex made smiling okay. Allowable, acceptable, tolerable. Rex gave Six a sort of "free pass" to a temporary lapse in professionalism.

Six never smiled around anyone else. Not even Dr. Holiday, who he may or may not have liked a little too much. It was a bizarre and strange thing, that Rex was the only one he ever smiled around, that Rex could even make him smile at all.

All Six wanted to know was why. Why Rex? In the beginning, the kid had just been a normal, angsty teenager who loved to cause mischief. Six had thought he could handle him easily. But then something had happened, something Dr. Holiday called "bonding." Rex and Six spent too much time together, at Providence base and on missions. Six had started to _know_ Rex. And once he had seen beyond the teenager's exterior, there had been no turning back. Six had just suddenly started caring about the kid, more than he would've liked. His fondness towards Rex was beginning to make him uneasy. It was manifesting into a kind of paternity that he couldn't shake off. Six got angry at people who mistreated him, got protective of him during missions... _got worried when he'd run away from base and then come back around two o'clock in the morning nearly two days later._

_What am I doing? This is something Dr. Holiday would do—_should _be doing—not me._ Six shook his head and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. He could hear Rex coming. Any other person would've never caught the sound, but Six's hearing was as acute as a dog's—figuratively, of course. He could just make out the soft, stealthy staccato of Rex's footsteps as he tip-toed down one of Providence's many hallways, towards his room.

Rex thought he was so smart, so clever. What he didn't know, or rather, what he refused to acknowledge was that his handler was always one step ahead of him. This time, as the door clicked and began to slide open to admit Rex into the room, Six was waiting. The agent was prepared to launch into a full-scale interrogation, sparing the kid no mercy. But his mind instantly went blank, forgetting the long-winded lecture he'd rehearsed at least fifty times that night, when he saw Rex standing in the doorway. He felt his face loosen, his eyes soften behind the shades he never took off, and he realized just how tense he had been. He supposed he had been expecting Rex to walk in looking like he'd just been fighting with another Evo—covered in bruises and scratches, groaning with a soreness that ran all the way down into his bones. But no. Rex appeared unscathed and in relatively fine condition, with the exception of obviously being extremely tired.

"Rex," Six called out from the shadows.

Rex started, but otherwise didn't seem very surprised, as he turned in the direction Six's voice was coming from. He saw that the agent was sitting in the corner.

"Oh. Hey, Six," he slurred tiredly, stretching his arms out in front of him and yawning.

Six stared at the kid for a moment before saying the first thing that came to his mind. "You look like hell," he said bluntly, standing up from his chair and walking over to where Rex was. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and pushed lightly, straightening him up a bit.

Rex smirked at Agent Six. "You don't say?" His voice was thick with not only sarcasm, but fatigue. "I haven't slept in, like, two days, Six—whaddya expect me to look like?" He pushed past Six, throwing his googles and jacket onto the chair the agent had just been sitting in. "_Man_, I'm beat! Noah and I stayed out all day and all night—snuck into a few mov-mov..." Rex was interrupted mid-sentence by a yawn, "movies, one-upped some jerks at the skate park, shot some hoops..." Another yawn. "It was a blast!"

Rex beamed, and Six realized that the kid was actually _sharing_ his day with him. This moment made him think of how children came home after a really fun day and just had to tell their parents about it, so that they might share in their joy, too. It was too much for Six, and he turned his head so that most of his face was hidden in shadow.

And he smiled.


End file.
